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Joined: Nov 25, 2004 Posts: 344 Location: DFW, Texas, USA
Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 6:10 am Post subject: -=Wishlist=- (based on PocketMap Navigator 2004R3.12)
Application icon: kinda hard to see. What is it anyway?
Different icon for favorites. Anything but a cutesy red heart would work ;)
POI icons: why the Vietnamese flag would be a good icon for police stations and a rose indicates "religious centers", I don't know.
Louder voices. Even using an external speaker, "Penelope" -the loudest and clearest character- is difficult to hear over the V8, and the TTS modules Adam, Bob, Carla and Donna are way too fast and high-pitched.
Power off: for some reason, the programmers thought over-riding "auto-off after n minutes when not connected to a power source" was a good idea. It wasn't. There should at least be an option to de-/select this "feature" in the settings of the program.
Speaking of settings. Some of the settings screens have a big square 'close' button, others don't. Needs to be more uniform, one way or other.
Multiple counties: when one enters a city, it will often be listed not only with the correct county, but also the neighboring one. Not an issue when driving in a 50 mile radius around town, where I know the county names, but outside of that area, this could become very confusing.
Installation: would be nice if files wouldn't get thrown all over the place on the Pocket PC.
Desktop application: the biggest selectable radius around one's hometown is 50 miles. Doesn't work that way in Texas :-) Free choice of radius please.
Points of interest are of course out of date, but I guess that's just the way it is. Same for the shopping centers in Longview, TX (see CoPilot Live--> Map Errors at this site). And sure enough, this one wants me to drive through the courthouse as well.
Joined: Nov 25, 2004 Posts: 344 Location: DFW, Texas, USA
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:08 am Post subject:
Quote:
Louder voices. Even using an external speaker, "Penelope" -the loudest and clearest character- is difficult to hear over the V8, and the TTS modules Adam, Bob, Carla and Donna are way too fast and high-pitched.
Fixed up Penelope, the recorded voice, by increasing the volume of the sound files in sndrec32.exe. Nothing I can do about Alvin, Simon and Theodore, the text-to-speech characters. Come to think of it, could this be a CPU-specific issue and they don't sound all that fast and high-pitched on the developers machine?
You must be a world traveller; not many people would know what a Vietnamese flag looks like :-) With regards to the icons, the gold star is evocative of the gold badges that sherriffs wear. Regarding the icons, the application icon is actually a picture of a winding road. Flowers are a symbol of peace, sympathy and compassion, so it lends itself well to religious centers.
The power feature is actually a safety feature: it would be dangerous if the application were to shut off on them in the middle of a route just before the driver has to make a turn, especially in high speeds on the freeway. The application install is actually in one main folder for the most part, but the files certainly aren't thrown around. They're all placed where they are because they need to be there.
That's interesting...in my experience the voices have not been that high-pitched or too fast, and we've tested it on a wide variety of Pocket PCs. For me, I've found using a Powered Mount boosts the volume of the voice quite a bit when the noise level is loud, in addition to holding the Pocket PC at a convenient position and angle. We will also check with our map data vendor on the courthouse problem.
Joined: Nov 25, 2004 Posts: 344 Location: DFW, Texas, USA
Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 9:19 pm Post subject:
rocketeer wrote:
You must be a world traveller; not many people would know what a Vietnamese flag looks like :-)
Way back when, long ago and far away, I used to instruct Vietnamese in the use of certain modern machinery :-)
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With regards to the icons, the gold star is evocative of the gold badges that sherriffs wear.
Make the background blue and/or draw a golden circle around the star?
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Regarding the icons, the application icon is actually a picture of a winding road.
Oh. Yeah, I can see that now; especially since the desktop application has the same icon.
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Flowers are a symbol of peace, sympathy and compassion, so it lends itself well to religious centers.
Olive branch?
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The power feature is actually a safety feature: it would be dangerous if the application were to shut off on them in the middle of a route just before the driver has to make a turn, especially in high speeds on the freeway.
Well, not a bad point; except it violates MS guidelines for programs written for the platform. But so does the [exit] button ;) How about a setting to let the user make that choice?
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The application install is actually in one main folder for the most part, but the files certainly aren't thrown around. They're all placed where they are because they need to be there.
OK, true. I was mostly confused by the actual exe placed in the windows/programs folder. Hard to find it there ;)
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That's interesting...in my experience the voices have not been that high-pitched or too fast, and we've tested it on a wide variety of Pocket PCs.
Well, not to worry then if the Toshiba e335 wasn't amongst them. I'm not going to buy another Toshiba PDA again, nor will anybody else. Ever.
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For me, I've found using a Powered Mount boosts the volume of the voice quite a bit when the noise level is loud, in addition to holding the Pocket PC at a convenient position and angle.
I cheated and used a cheap unpowered speaker ($9 at RadioShack) that was meant as an external speaker for CB radios. As a mount for the Pocket PC, well, the dashboard of my vehicle is almost vertical, and we're talking about a vast expanse of plastic, so I glued a velcro strip next to the tach and the counter part on the back of the PPC:
The GPS receiver can be seen reflected in the windshield. Also fixed with velcro so it doesn't flop around. Low cost high tech :-)
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We will also check with our map data vendor on the courthouse problem.
Probably nothing much you can do about that. All the programs for handhelds seem to do the same. Only Mapquest and other online services seem to be able to get that right. Which is pretty weird since they are all using the same data.
And as not to sound too whiny, I favor PMN over Ostia, Mapopolis, CoPilot, and a couple of other programs I tried out. But you know, one never hears from a happy customer, so please don't take criticism too hard.
On the positive side: most of the map data is correct, routing --after some tweaking with the settings-- picks the same routes I would have chosen, Penelope is loud and clear now and doesn't even need the external speaker anymore, signal acquisition is pretty fast, and I'm probably going to jinx it, it hasn't locked up on me yet either.
Thanks for taking the time reading my ramblings and answering them! It's much appreciated!
Thanks Kar for starting this. I recently purchased PMN and like the program alot.
"Louder voices" -- I don't have any trouble hearing Penelope on my Navman PiN. I haven't really played with the others.
"Speaking of settings. Some of the settings screens have a big square 'close' button, others don't. Needs to be more uniform, one way or other." -- I agree 110%.
"Installation: would be nice if files wouldn't get thrown all over the place on the Pocket PC." -- I agree 120%. It took me a while to find the app in the Windows folder. Further, why allow the user to select storage card as an installation option if the installer doesn't use it??
Here's some of my own:
1. Default zoom level. Allow the user to set it. Every time I start PMN and go to the guidance screen, I have to go back to the map screen to increase the zoom level and then back to the guidance screen.
2. I really like the font feature. But I'd also like the ability to change the font color and size. I'm color blind and really need black text. My eyes are getting old and I really need a bigger font size.
3. Who do I send map errors to? There are some really wierd street names that (as far as I can tell) never existed. The other day I found a street segment that was totally out of place. Almost like an artifact from a segment of map 5 miles away.
4. Better wording of the speed limit settings. It took me a while to figure them out. The actual operation is considerably different than what is implied in the settings.
Thanks to Space Machine for a great program. Keep up the good work.
mkss
Joined: Nov 25, 2004 Posts: 344 Location: DFW, Texas, USA
Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 3:36 pm Post subject:
mkss55442 wrote:
Thanks Kar for starting this. I recently purchased PMN and like the program alot.
As I said, I picked it for personal use over a bunch of others I tried
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2. I really like the font feature. But I'd also like the ability to change the font color and size. I'm color blind and really need black text. My eyes are getting old and I really need a bigger font size.
, and I've been shooting high-powered rifles and large-caliber pistols since I was 14. Could this have possibly anything to do with me wanting louder voices? ;)
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Thanks to Space Machine for a great program. Keep up the good work.
mkss
Here's another one: Allow the user to set a discreet speed limit.
I finally played with the text-to-speech voices and agree with Kar. We need louder text-to-speech voices. On my Navman PiN, Penelope is almost 2x louder than the other voices. My wife kept asking me "what did it say" and "they sound like they've inhaled helium".
I'd also like to figure out how to eliminate the announcements of the type "in .2 miles go straight" when that's the only way I can go. And "in .2 miles take the ramp" when there is no ramp to be taken.
Here's another one: Allow the user to set a discreet speed limit.
I'd also like to figure out how to eliminate the announcements of the type "in .2 miles go straight" when that's the only way I can go. And "in .2 miles take the ramp" when there is no ramp to be taken.
This is becoming a real irritant. Not only does the program tell me to go straight when that's the only way I can go, it also tells me to merge all too often when the road is straight. It's getting to the point where I'm beginning to use other programs because PMN seems to talk just to hear itself talk.
Just to add to my response...I think the real problem is the routing. There's a major highway I use often. If I look at the route steps, there are extra "segments" that are really the same road. When PMN gets to one of these "segments" it thinks it's a new maneuver and speaks, even though it's all one road. It also seems to segment a road if there is a curve.
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, and I've been shooting high-powered rifles and large-caliber pistols since I was 14. Could this have possibly anything to do with me wanting louder voices? ;)
